Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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128. To ask the Minister for Trade, Enterprise and Employment the estimated cost of trebling the young entrepreneur fund. [25315/20]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur (IBYE) is a programme targeting Ireland’s young entrepreneurs, developed and run by the 31 Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs)with the support of the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment, Enterprise Ireland and Local Authorities. Annually in excess of 1200 young entrepreneurs across the country enter the competition. Since its inception in 2014, over 600 young entrepreneurs have received in excess of €8million in IBYE funding as well as a wide range of vital training and mentoring to support them on their entrepreneurial journeys.

The competition is open to people between the ages of 18 and 35 with an innovative business idea, new start-up or established business. As part of the IBYE process, up to 450 young entrepreneurs are invited by the LEOs to attend free regional ‘Entrepreneur Bootcamps’ to help them develop their businesses and new venture ideas.

Former IBYE national finalists including Shorla Pharma, Glofox, Output Sports, Buymie Technologies, Strong Roots and Beats Medical are international success stories having raised significant investment while increasing employment and exports. Independent research commissioned in 2017 highlighted the impact that Irish entrepreneurs made in 2014, 2015 and 2016 through the IBYE programme. Between 2014 and 2016, 4,259 young entrepreneurs applied for IBYE, of which 1,350 received business bootcamp training and one-to-one mentoring. 348 of those entrepreneurs won IBYE investment funding of between €3,000 and €50,000 from their Local Enterprise Office and had generated annual sales of €124million and employed 2,217 people. The total investment by Government through the Local Enterprise Offices across the three years in the IBYE programme was €5million.

The investment fund is €1,650,000, consisting of €50,000 for each of the 31 LEOs and €100,000 in National Investment. The overhead cost for the last two competitions has been c. €960,000 on each occasion. This comprises IBYE Bootcamp Funds (€16,000 per LEO) and IBYE Local Marketing Funds (€5,000 per LEO) with the balance managed nationally towards project management, website and marketing.

IBYE is currently being evaluated in terms of the future orientation and funding of the programme.